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Can Make You Sleep by Paul McKenna is this absolutely amazing book I just read about a month ago. Let me give you a bit of background. Ever since I was an infant, I never slept well. I’d torture my poor mother at all hours of the night with crying and then when I got older, I’d just lay in bed and stare at the ceiling. For as long as I can remember, I would stay awake tossing and turning for 3 or more hours every single long, boring night. I hated sleeping because it was so boring! You just…

The total statewide October through December precipitation was 78 percent of average, further adding to our accumulated water supply deficit. The 2009 Water Year (October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2009) was the third consecutive year of below average precipitation for the state. Annual statewide precipitation totaled 76 percent, 72 percent, and 63 percent of average for Water Years 2009, 2008, and 2007, respectively. On the bright side, January precipitation through the 28th is above average January rainfall. So what do you do in this situation? Give up gardening all together? Mainstream agriculture uses about twice as much water (and maybe much more!) to irrigate as a…

I decided to try something different this year with my garden. Last year I had raised beds. It worked great for having soft soil and it wasn’t too much work because I just dug out the paths and piled it onto the beds so I didn’t have to bring in soil from somewhere else. However, the point of having raised beds is also to keep the plants roots from drowning in excess water. As you can see, the plants roots are safely away from the water with the freedom to grow down to the water as needed without the roots…

Just so that everyone knows, whenever you cook eggs make sure that you don’t leave them boiling for so long that all the water boils out. Here’s why: and Luckily, I’d NEVER do anything like this. Some of you might say, but Serina, I’ve been over to your house and those pictures look JUST like your kitchen. Weird coincidence, huh? It looks just like my kitchen and my pots and tea pot, but it isn’t because I would never be so silly as to leave a small pot of water with eggs in it boiling while I went out to…

OSLO (Reuters) – Spending time on a farm looking after cows, horses, or other animals can help people with mental illness better manage their anxieties and increase their confidence, according to a study published on Friday. GREEN BUSINESS The findings by Norwegian scientists could further widen use of “Green care”, which enlists nature to ease patients’ suffering. “Looking after and having contact with farm animals has some positive effects on psychiatric patients with a diversity of serious illnesses,” said lead author Bente Berget of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in Aas, west Norway. She told Reuters that…

Finally got some cotton patch geese. This is a rare breed known for being gentle and for being good weeders. They’re super cute. I taught them to swim today. Well, I just put them in a kiddy pool and in seconds they were diving and splashing all over the place.

Well, I spent yesterday dragging wooden pallets and setting up a fence only to have the wind blow it down today. The hay pallet fence was a great idea. The pallets were free and just laying around providing a home for lizards. I wired them together and drove wood stakes into the ground for support. I guess it wasn’t enough though. I’m going to try driving in more stakes before I give up.

Here’s a pic of the orchard. We’ve really been trying to get the trees pruned in time for spring, but spring is beating us. There’s a lot of work to do. The trees haven’t been pruned in years and are twisted and dying and really bad. Some have a good foundation and others are simply hopeless. Do you see the blue barrels in the background underneath the rainbow? Those are to provide water for the coyotes that come and chew up our drip irrigation system. We finally figured out how to stop them so we don’t have to fix the…

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Flip Flop Ranch is focused on saving endangered breeds of livestock and rescuing as many feral cats as possible ;)
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